Dev Spotlight: Random Crafting System.

[San0]

 

First and before the panic starts, this is not a Lineage 2 crafting system replacement, normal item crafting is still in the game and still works the same way with little tweaks here and there but still the same good old, bring a bunch of mats, rec and parts and click to fail... I mean... to craft your items.

One of the HUGE problems of having servers that last for as long as ours do, is the adena inflation. So many people with so many characters, so much time of farm and so many items that get sold to the NPC in exchange for adena, makes it so at some point, there is so much adena in the server that the value of it starts being almost non existent to most of the active players who play for a long time. As the value of adena decreases and the value of the items does not, we end up having a situation where items cost an insane amount of adena. This would not be a problem if everyone would play the same amount of time, from the server start, have the same luck etc... But because our servers live for so long, this almost never applies. And with the amount of adena inflation it can happen in a few months, its already hard for a player who joined the game couple of weeks later, imagine for players who start the game a year later or 3 years later or 10 years later... It makes it almost impossible to achieve the amount of adena they would need to purchase any type of relevant items without months of serious farm, and some luck to go with it.
In the battle against this problem we came out with some solutions, one of them spins around having multiple adena sinks that we shall talk about another day.
The other road, is to reduce the income of adena that does not come directly from mob killing as much as we can (EX: bunch of trash items being sold to the NPC after the grind session).
For this reason we decided to implement the Random Craft.

What is it?

Random Craft is a system that allows players to use undesired key mats, recipes and materials to donate them to the Craftsman Guild in exchange for Crafting Points. Player can also receive extra Crafting Points while grinding.
With these Crafting Points, players can craft a random item from a list given to them randomly.

 

How it works?

Player is farming and during the farming session collects 12 random weapon key mats and 4 random recipes. Player can use these items, to contribute them to the Craftsman Guild, and recharge their Crafting Points.

NPCs no longer give adena for this items. They have no adena value. (keymats and recs above non grade)

 

Can open the interface by pushing this button on the system window.

 

When Crafting Points are recharged player can use them to refresh the list of items offered on the Random Crafting window.
The items on these groups are given randomly from a list of items possible, the full list of items in this system is dependent on the server stages. Later on it goes, better items will be available.

 

Locking the slots.

Players can chose to use a new form of currency (that we also shall talk about another day) to lock a slot. up to 3 slots can be locked before a craft.

Locking a slot ensures that if some item from list is of big interest, you can lock it, so next time you refresh the list, that group does not refresh and keeps the same item.
EX: you refesh and slot  1 rolls some sword you want to try to get, you can lock slot 1, so on next refresh only slots  2, 3, 4 and 5 will change the item.

 

Creating items.

When you are satisfied with your options or feel lucky, with cost of some adena, you can press the CREATE button to randomly create one of the items displayed in the window.

 

Cons of this system:
- It might feel a bit "mobile game" at the start and in some situation disappointing if you constantly roll bad stuff.

Pros of this system:
- Mass adena influx reduction, leading to slower adena inflation.
- Adena sink, once again leading to slower adena inflation.
- Some sort of a pity system at some point. Player farms all day long and get no full drops or other good items, he can recharge the crafting points with the random trash parts and recs and have a chance for something, without upsetting adena influx by selling all the trash loot in the NPC.

Its a system that might feel off for a while, but we believe its a usefull tool to ensure a healthier economy for a longer period of time so that players who join the adventure later, do not have to grind for months just to have the adena to try to buy some items to improve their character, while at the same time keeping the market more constant with more reliable values and accessible for every type of player, from the ones who play from start to the ones who just started few days ago.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE INFOS!